In their article about Saturday’s March on the Pentagon, the NY Times mentions the Party for Socialism and Liberation and gets the facts correct, unlike too many uninformed articles about ANSWER the past few years.

Saturday’s march was organized by the Answer Coalition — named for Act Now to Stop War and End Racism — an organization that was initially associated with the Workers World Party and now affiliated with a breakaway faction of that party called the Party for Socialism and Liberation.

That faction broke from WWP nearly three years ago and formed the now-thriving PSL. From the PSL founding statement.

As former leaders and members of Workers World Party, we defend that group’s historical tradition and mission, particularly that of its founder Sam Marcy. Although we believe that the Workers World Party leadership is no longer capable of fulfilling that mission, we still consider it to be a progressive organization with many honest activists.

Yet many supposed leftist publications still get this simple fact wrong, and continue to link ANSWER with Workers World, not forgetting to toss in some red-baiting and socialist-bashing too. How progressive is it to recycle right-wing smears without even fact-checking first? Not very…

Back to the NY Times article

Brian Becker, the national coordinator of the Answer Coalition and a member of the Party of Socialism and Liberation, said the group held out little hope of influencing either the president or Congress. “It is about radicalizing people,” Mr. Becker said in an interview. “You hook into a movement that exists — in this case the antiwar movement — and channel people who care about that movement and bring them into political life, the life of political activism.”

Precisely, that’s what activism is about. All the causes are linked. That’s the point that needs to be made.

PSLweb is the primary news site for PSL, with timely articles and analysis appearing several times a week. It’s well worth checking out.

(As an aside, if you look at hard-core organizing in the States, socialists and the religious often play major roles. The labor struggles of the early 1900’s had socialists at the core, and without them we might not have a 40 hour work week or unemployment insurance. The civil rights and anti-Vietnam war campaigns of the 50’s and 60’s had both socialists and people of faith as key organizers from the beginning.)

1 Comment »

StopTheSqueeze, a new project from InDebtWeTrust, GlobalVision, and CreditCardNation, wants to educate and mobilize the public about the predatory credit card industry.

We need to understand how the business of consumer debt is strangling American households with usurious terms and unavoidable pricing tricks that are the direct result of relaxed government regulations and the carefully planned policies of corporate lenders.

As usual, a tiny elite is fattening itself by exploiting the poor and unwary, this time with interest rates and practices that would make a Mafia loan shark blush. Hell yes, it’s a class thing.

When I graduated from college I had a then, to me, stratospheric amount of credit card and student loan debt, about $8,000 or so. It took me several years to pay it off and since then, I always pay off the credit card balance each month with the result that my credit score is now 803. As a car dealer once told me, with a score like that you can drive off with any car on the lot based on your signature alone.So, I learned to manage my debt. But for many, facing high rents or medical bills, using plastic money is the only recourse. Plus they may be unaware of what the interest and fees are, and get caught is a spiral of debt they can’t get out of. Congress, of course, sits by idly until the exploitation gets so blatant they can’t ignore it any more (like is happening now) but by then it’s too late for millions of Americans.

Watch the trailer to In Debt We Trust, this is an issue we all need to mobilize on.

No Comments »

For about a dime a day, GreenDimes promises to reduce your postal junk mail (while giving your control over what you want to receive) and will plant trees in the process as well.

3 Comments »